9/11 - The End Game

The indices had a mild but noticeable selloff on news of another suicide bombing in Israel around 3:30 PM EDT reminding traders that we have had nearly a month of relative quiet there. I am calling up quotes now for Fall options expiry. IRA money sits in cash because I have to "invest" it, not trade it, in a setting where I am a long by default, with no stop loss, as are millions. Saddam shouts defiance and there is an ominous silence from Washington in case you hadn't noticed. And the solemn anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is less than two months away - yet another reminder that the issue of radical Islamic terrorism and its effects on this country is unresolved, an "unfilled gap" if you will in everything from the financial history of the United States to the collective need of many Americans for security, for a resolution, or for revenge.

I believe that a military conflict with Iraq is imminent (within 6 months) which will be carried out with such violence that it will seem pretty clear that the goal is the realignment of the entire Arab world into those regimes that survive and those that don't because they oppose us. To put it another way, the initial view that this is a years or decades long battle on many fronts is quickly turning into a catastrophe for our markets because of uncertainty, the return of deficits, capital flight to safer markets, whatever.

I am curious if any readers share my view that that an end along these lines is coming much sooner rather than later and how it might affect our markets initially and in the long run. This sure seems like a huge issue facing us very soon.

On the doom thing. It's not doom at all for the United States. That's the whole point. And then it's time to fix Iran and Egypt.
My guess seeing the head of Jordan in the paper at some anti-Saddam gathering or other thing in London, is that he's looking down the road 10 or 20 years and doesn't want to go third world.

It's the Islamic countries that are facing doom. Imagine Saudi Arabia as a stock. Watching that first loaded tanker with gas, not crude, arrive in NYC from Russia in the same month that the New York Times reports 25K Saudi government payments to families of suicide bombers - now that's a stock that's going to zero.

Who Wants This War?
And why don't we find out before we start one?
By Michael Kinsley
Posted Wednesday, July 10, 2002

It was amazing to read the Pentagon's detailed plans for an invasion of Iraq in the New York Times last week. The general reaction of Americans to this news was even more amazing: Basically, there was no reaction. We seem to be distant observers of our own nation's preparation for war, watching with horror or approval or indifference a process we have nothing to do with and cannot affect. Which is just about the case.

Who really wants this war? Polls show that a modest and shrinking majority of Americans will choose military action to remove Saddam Hussein when someone holding a clipboard confronts them with a list of options. But does anything like a majority of the citizenry hold this view with the informed intensity that a decision for war deserves? I doubt it. And how many of that pro-"military action" majority imagine that it will be nearly blood-free on our side, based on the experience of the Gulf War, which turned out that way precisely because President Bush's father decided not to try to topple Saddam?

Abroad, nearly all of America's major allies are against it. The Arab states surely dream about being rid of Saddam Hussein. But they won't give public support or permission to use their land and airspace, which is not too much to ask if we're going to save them from a threat as great as Saddam is said to be. Even the Kurdish opposition within Iraq apparently thinks that being liberated by Superpower America, while nice, would be more trouble than it's worth. That's trouble to them, not to us!

Ask around at work, or among your family: Is anyone truly gung-ho? It seems as if true enthusiasm for all-out war against Iraq is limited to the Bush administration and a subset of the Washington policy establishment. The Democratic leadership in Congress feigns enthusiasm, which amounts to the same thing in terms of responsibility for the consequences. You are what you pretend to be. The Democrats feign out of fear of seeming weak-kneed. Bush's enthusiasm seems genuine and is therefore more mysterious. Crude Oedipal theories (triumphing where Dad failed) are tempting, but not as plausible as the simple possibility that he sincerely believes Saddam poses a danger big enough to justify risking massive bloodshed and his own political ruin. And maybe he's right.

It's a was that is going to happen, it's a war (call me horrible) that practically needs to happen.
The arab nations are going more third world every day - thanks to the arab wide insurgence of militant islamism ('militant' really being a redundant term, but that's another story). A shake up with the US taking out Iraq and, depending on which path it chooses, perhaps Iran, would do the whole arab world a favor.

I am definititely not Dubblya's biggest fan, but I hope he stands by the "you're either with us or against us" claim.

Originally posted by daniel_m It's a was that is going to happen, it's a war (call me horrible) that practically needs to happen.
The arab nations are going more third world every day - thanks to the arab wide insurgence of militant islamism ('militant' really being a redundant term, but that's another story). A shake up with the US taking out Iraq and, depending on which path it chooses, perhaps Iran, would do the whole arab world a favor.

I am definititely not Dubblya's biggest fan, but I hope he stands by the "you're either with us or against us" claim.

There isn't any question that much of the Arab world is third world. Save a few of the oil rich, worldwide prosperity or at least an improving economic situation has left them behind. Remember Lebanon? Look at the Palestinians for an example of a bird soiling its own nest. They can blame Israel, blame anyone, yet thay cannot produce a leader that seems to even care about delivering them from squalor. Remember when they opened the Palestinian Airport? Hard to imagine businessmen from around the world flying into that shithole - probably hasn't been a flight in years. Remember how many people here, especially older folks, talked of going to see the pyramids? Not anymore.

Now that they can't seem to vocalize a sane interpretation of Islam that the rest of the world can remotely relate to since 9/11 and even before, they look to be bringing that faith to the level of a gutter religion and precipitating probably the greatest crisis in its history. Where the hell is any voice of moderation and decency? A Martin Luther King type figure comes to mind.

No big Dubya fan here either. I've been mixing it up with an 82 year old former history teacher who said people on balance really had little confidence in FDR either before or just after Pearl Harbor, but like she says, "He was all we had at the time."

The one in print seems calculated to make Prechter look like a dope. The author quotes someone who says that a depression is <i>impossible</i> and says, 'I agree with him.' I shook my head when I read that line. The Titanic is unsinkeable, too.